ArticleBMC health services research2025
Australian paramedics' perceptions of reasonable overtime: a Delphi study.
Article in BMC health services research, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundParamedics frequently incur reasonable overtime (RO) due to factors such as staffing, patient acuity and transport durations. Considering the risks associated with extended work hours, understanding paramedics’ opinions of reasonable and unreasonable overtime is vital for safe workforce management. The current study aimed to gain consensus on operational paramedics’ perception of conditions that are reasonable and unreasonable for overtime.
methodsThe Delphi methodology comprised three iterative survey rounds completed by experienced paramedics working in metropolitan areas of Australia. In Round 1, participants gave a free-text definition of RO and voted on the degree to which a predetermined list of RO-related conditions were reasonable. Free-text responses underwent a content analysis to determine additional RO-related conditions based on the definitions of RO provided by participants. These conditions were then combined with the predetermined list of RO conditions and voted on by participants in Round 2 and 3.
resultsOut of 189 initial participants, 144 completed Round 2 (76.2% response rate) and 128 completed Round 3 (88.9% response rate). Consensus (≥ 80% agreement) was achieved for 50% (n = 17) of the RO-related conditions. Nearly all paramedics agreed that overtime was reasonable for time-critical emergencies where there is an expected detrimental effect to a patient without a paramedic’s attendance (96%), whereas nearly all paramedics agreed that RO to ‘clear the board/pending queue’ was unreasonable (99%).
conclusionsParamedics reached consensus on four reasonable and thirteen unreasonable conditions for RO, resulting in the creation of the first set of consensus-based considerations for RO from the perspective of operational paramedics in Australia. These findings provide important insights into how paramedics perceive RO. Future research examining the proposed considerations for RO is needed to determine their feasibility and acceptability by ambulance services and other paramedics, and their potential effectiveness in this industry for workforce planning.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.